Conventionally, engine generator devices each including an engine and a generator driven by the engine are well known. Demand for such engine generator devices is increasing in emerging countries, from a point in which such engine generator devices may be easily installed to cope with a lack of normal commercial power supplies and an increase in electric load, and because the engine generator devices, as being decentralized generator devices, do not require a transmission and distribution grid. Further, also in advanced countries, also from a necessity of coping with needs of emergency power at a time of disaster, it is possible to transport individual parts to respective sites where generation power is required, to assemble at each site, and to make a completed product only by plumbing respective parts. Therefore, demands for decentralized power supplies of on-site assembling type, especially, of middle-sized have been increased.
However, as demands for decentralized middle-sized engine generator power supplies have been increased, even when main components of these engines, generators, and such are unitized, since these have to be transported to a site and coupling of the unitized engines and generators, connections of pipes, and such have to be carried out on site, and, when adjustments are made for each coupled unit on site, time and skills are required for the assemblies and adjustments.
Even when main components are unitized as described above, since they are middle-sized generators, it takes a certain number of days for the assemblies and adjustments. Therefore, it does not meet an urgent demand at a time of a disaster such as in a case where electric power was urgently required for the last nuclear accident.
Even when main components are unitized, since connections of pipes and cables are required between units, it is required to save an installation space by reducing routings of pipes and cables and such as much as possible at a time of assembly. Since performance adjustments were made on site after assembly, even when main components were unitized, performance adjustments of a completed engine generator device could not also be stably made due to variations in skills of workers on site.
For eliminating such drawbacks, a technology of eliminating needs for assemblies and performance adjustments on site by using containers used for ocean transportation, land transportation, and air transportation and mounting an engine generator device as it is in the container, in other words, a container handling device in a container of which an engine equipped with a cooling fan on a front side, a generator driven by the engine on a rear side of the engine, and such are arranged in series is disclosed (the prior art of Patent Document 1)
Generally, sizes of containers that are transported by mounting on a ship, a truck, and such are commonalized. According to standards specified by the ISO standard, lengths of the container are only two kinds, which are 20 f (6 m) and 40 f (12 m) (although a container of a length of 45 f is standardized, it may not be transported under the current Road Traffic Law in Japan). A width and a height of a container are unified to be 8 f (2.4 m) and 8.6 f (2.6 m), respectively. Therefore, in a case of containers of standards that may be transported on Japanese public roads, even when a 40 f (12 m) container is used, although it is long in a longer direction, a width and a height are set to be 8 f (2.4 m) and 8.6 f (2.6 m), respectively, which are narrow so that a truck on which such a container is mounted may run on public roads.
Therefore, as is similar to Patent Document 1, it is required to make a disposition space of an engine as large as possible by arranging in series in the longer direction of a container each unit of an engine, generator, and other units (a wind-power generation unit in Cited document 1). However, as is similar to Patent Document 1, since, when the engine, the generator, and other units are arranged in series in this order, a weight of the engine is relatively heavier than the other units, the center of gravity of the container is decentered to a front side of the container with the arrangement configuration, the possibility that the container is inclined when the container is hoisted up by a crane and such or a freak accident occurs is increased.
When a configuration in which a plurality of units including an engine is accommodated in one container is adopted, since an exhaust gas has to be exhausted to the outside of the engine, the container becomes a configuration in which a muffler is mounted on an upper wall of the container above the engine as illustrated in Patent Document 1 and such configuration leads to making a height of an entire container higher than the standard, a truck on which the container is mounted becomes incapable of running on public roads. Therefore, although it is general to adopt a configuration in which a muffler is detachable from the container or a muffler is mounted at a time of assembly on site, such a configuration not only increases assembly man-hour on site but also tends to bring about an environmental problem from vibrations and a thermal effect caused by the muffler being exposed and protruded to the outside.
On the other hand, even when an engine generator device, for instance, uses a highly efficient gas engine, it uses a fossil fuel, namely a natural gas. From a view point of energy saving and CO2 saving, a study is required of design and development of a cogeneration type generator that effectively utilizes an exhaust gas of an engine and exhaust heat of cooling water. Therefore, for the conventional engine generators, a lot of engine generators with cogeneration have been developed each of which positively utilizes exhaust heat of an engine and obtains steam heat by heat exchange between an exhaust gas and a boiler, and obtains hot water for hot-water supply by exchanging heat between clear water and heated cooling water used for cooling the engine (refer to Patent Document 2 and such).